


In the Woods Somewhere

by Yeetle_Beetle



Category: Faerie Folklore, Original Work
Genre: Ecology, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Kissing, Safer Sex, Tickle Fights, Vaginal Sex, sorta - Freeform, yes in that order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeetle_Beetle/pseuds/Yeetle_Beetle
Summary: Willy doesn't mean to wander into the Spring Court's celebration.  It just sorta...happens.  In her defense, the green deer was way too interesting to ignore.~~~Based off a tumblr post I saw about being easily lured by fairies bc they're a naturalist and are easily distracted/are curious about weird animals/bugspls enjoy :)
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Female Human/Original Fae Male, human/fae
Kudos: 16





	In the Woods Somewhere

Honestly, there was nothing like a good boreal forest to settle Willy’s head. Everything but her work seemed to fade away when she stepped into the tall, silver white birch and stands of spruce trees. About a day’s hike from the pothole filled parking lot, the only sound where she set up camp was the chatter of songbirds and rustle of leaves as the breeze swept through the trees.

Her one man tent was pitched, the campstove and tiny kerosene burner set away from any dry grass or leaves, and all that was left to do was find a good tree to put up her stand in. Willy took a good look around, surveying the surrounding area. She had to find a good sized stand of spruce trees to get the data she was looking for, and spotted a towering white spruce sticking above the bright green of the birch and cottonwood around it.

“That’ll do,” she said to herself. Whenever she went on trips by herself like this, it never took her very long to start talking to herself. It was mostly to make sure the silence and isolation didn’t get to her. She figured if she ever heard anything talk back, that would be the time to pack it up and head back to civilization.

Fifteen minutes of walking, far enough away from her campsite not to affect her results, and twelve feet in the air, her tree stand was complete. Willy made sure all the moorings were secure, the stand was sufficiently camouflaged, and not so high as to certainly kill her if she fell out of it. “Good enough.” And turned back to camp to make dinner.

Tin foil baked potatoes and vacuum sealed smoked sausages were standard fair on these sorts of trips, and was just as satisfying and tasty as they always were. This far north at this time of year, the sky stayed light long into the night, and Willy nestled into her sleeping bag in the dim half-light of her tent. She closed her eyes and reminded herself that yes, she  _ did _ clean her dishes well and secure her food where bears wouldn’t be attracted to it. Eventually, she fell asleep.

……… 

_ Something in the woods laughed, long miles and many shades away. Actually, a lot of somethings laughed and danced and drank and were merry long into the night. The trees around them swayed, and warped and made strange shapes, the moss grew thick on the roots, and old man’s beard swayed from long, spindly twigs. Their laughter and song stretched over the forest. _

………… 

Willy had weird dreams last night. She never really remembered her dreams, usually only that she had them, and they were always the long, rambling kind that had a storyline, just one that jumped and wandered so they only made sense at the time you were having them. Whenever she woke, she had vague recollections of emotions and events, but no real idea of what happened. This wasn’t one of those.

She remembered that she’d dreamed. That was it. Willy sat up, bleary in the light filtered in through the tent fabric.  _ Something _ pulled at her memory for half a second, laughter and firelight, and she chased it. And it slipped out of her head, as dreams are wont to do in the morning. She blinked in the morning light, before she remembered all the water she’d drank before bed and got up to go find a bush.

The day went well. She’d eaten a breakfast of instant oatmeal and hot tea, packed a sandwich, apple and baggie of trailmix and her water bottle and hiked back to the tree stand, with her clicker and field notebook. For eight hours everyday for a week, she’d sit in this tree and record every single squirrel that scampered by, and what they appeared to be up to. Satisfied in the knowledge that other poorly paid grad students were doing the same thing, in other, similar, forests giving her a little bit of comfort at least. She wasn’t alone. At least figuratively. She was pretty alone here.

The hours ticked by, squirrels recorded as foraging, evading predation, and in the most exciting thing to happen all day, get snatched up by a hawk that Willy had seen circling for a few hours. She marked that unfortunate rodent as ‘predated’ and called it science.

The next few days went by similarly uneventful. A couple times she sat still for so long that birds flew right up next to her and perched. A woodpecker bored a hole into the trunk about a foot away and picked out a beetle, calm as can be.  _ This  _ was why Willy did this, not just for the (shitty) pay, but for the experience of sitting, and seeing, and experiencing the ecosystem around her, the way the forest or desert or tundra worked around her and seeing it in action. It was why she was paying thousands of dollars for a pHD.

Every few days, she woke in the morning with the knowledge that she’d had a dream, with no memory of it whatsoever. Which was fine, dreams were nothing unusual, just the brain’s way of organising and processing the day’s information. She thought nothing of it, and continued counting squirrels. Everything was normal. Until she noticed something.

Every morning she walked to the tree stand. Her tree was in a stand of spruce trees, both black spruce and white spruce. All of the lower branches were nibbled bare by moose, likely, and were covered in a lichen called old man’s beard. Only today, the lichen seemed much longer, growing thicker too, like she’d seen in more temperate forests, instead of the dry, cooler woods here. That, and the mosses seemed to have fruited overnight, the long sporophytes stretching above the main body. “Huh.” She knelt to inspect the mosses below her. She pulled out her x10 magnifying lens (her junior year botany professor had told them never to leave home without it) and pulled a bit out of the leaf litter. It looked normal, just blooming all out of sync. Usually, these bloomed late summer, early fall. In June, this was odd. “Huh,” she said again.

Willy straightened up, looking around again. This time, the tree stand caught her eye. It was absolutely covered in moss and lichen, nearly overgrown. Closer inspection revealed that the metal wasn’t rusted or deteriorated in any way, that time to grow that much moss might have done, but was still pristine and new. The only difference was the bryophytes clinging to it. “That is very odd,” she said aloud. “Something hinky’s going on here.” She took pictures of everything and continued searching the grove.

There were several clusters of mushrooms that had sprung up overnight, but it had rained a couple times the past few days, so that wasn’t out of the ordinary. What  _ was _ out of the ordinary was the weathered footpath that led out of the grove that hadn’t been there before.

“Oh, what the fuck is this,” she said, looking down the trail. It looked very normal, like the trail she’d taken hiking in, threaded with gnarled roots, fairly distinct and marked with cairns along the way. Only it had shown up overnight. Which was not normal. 

She looked up at the sky. It was still early in the day, plenty of time to follow it, and still get back in time for dinner. Sure.

So Willy hiked her backpack a little higher, and set off down the path. Right away, the trees thickened, trees growing closer and closer together, crowding the path and blocking a lot of the light. The air grew dimmer, and smelled heavily of leaf litter, detritus and natural decay. The farther down it she traveled, the more interesting things she saw. The usual puffball mushrooms, shaggy mane and amanitas that were typical around here became less and less common, and were replaced with more brightly colored ones, some with elaborate shapes, like you’d see on some nature program. There was also a lot of new pollen in the air. Birch pollen, like she was used to, was fine and invisible until she collected it on her glasses lenses. This stuff was so thick in the air she could see it, and her boots almost kicked up clouds of it when she brushed against bushes and shrubs. 

Closer inspection revealed it to be coming from a low growing flower that looked a hell of a lot like dwarf dogwood, but with five petals instead of four, and less cream colored and more faintly pink. She also noticed that there were thick patches of wild blueberry and lingonberry, which wasn’t in itself strange, but they were fruiting, which didn’t happen until late August. Willy was incredibly confused. Her neck prickled and she stood up and looked around warily, staying stock still and quieting her breathing, watching and listening. 

Nothing moved, save for the play of the breeze through the leaves again. A bird flew overhead, just a songbird by the looks of it. Then something did move. Out of the corner of her eye, what she thought had been part of a shrub suddenly walked forward, adjacent to the path. Willy jumped slightly, but stayed still and quiet as she could. It looked like a deer (only there were no deer here, what the fuck?) only deer didn’t usually have what looked like moss growing on it’s fur, or branches instead of antlers. It was green tinged, even where the moss wasn’t. It almost looked like sloths, and she thought of the way they had algae in their fur.  _ Maybe that’s what this is, only on a larger level _ .  _ After all, seaweed’s just really large algae, it could just be really big algae, _ she thought.

She watched the deer-thing step onto the path and continue in the direction Willy had been going. It didn’t seem to have noticed her, or at least didn’t care about her presence.  _ Oh, there is no way I’m not following that thing. _ She let it get a few yards down the path before slowly creeping along behind it. It’s ears tilted back towards her, but it kept moving forward normally. 

She followed it for a little ways, watching how it moved and behaved. It just looked like a normal deer, except for the greenery, and acted like one too. It displayed normal prey behavior, careful survey of its surroundings, nibbling on some leaves before bringing its head up swiftly, suddenly alert, before going back to eating. Eventually, Willy let herself inspect where the deer-thing had brought her. There were more birds here, and their calls were strange and unfamiliar. She caught a glimpse of one, and it was larger and scruffier than it had sounded. It sang like a songbird, but it’s size and shape was more like a raptor, with large talons and sharp, forward-facing eyes. She stared at it for a moment before it blinked, and its eyes changed color, from yellow-orange to bright green. 

“What the fuck,” Willy whispered. She didn’t  _ think _ she was going nuts, everything had seemed normal up until now, none of the creeping and gradual hallucinations survivors of isolation and near death had reported. And she hadn’t been out here  _ that _ long. She shook herself and looked back to the path and blinked. The deer was gone.

“Holy shit!” she whispered, where had it gone! Maybe it just slipped into the bushes again, and she just didn’t see it, like before. It had been right in front of her, and she hadn’t even known. But the surrounding forest was quiet and she hadn’t even heard it move. Given the weird surroundings, Willy had a feeling it wasn’t just off the path, it was gone. She looked back to the bird, only to see it had vanished as well.

“Oh, what the fresh hell is this,” she said again, this time louder now that there was no strange wildlife to scare off. She knelt down to examine one of the not-dogwood again, “None of this makes any sense and I’m so fucking confused.”

“Such language!” a smooth voice above her said. 

Willy yelped, and jerked in surprise. Her head connected with something hard and she heard a sharp grunt from the person looming over her. Off-balance, she fell back on her butt, and glanced up to see a very tall, thin man standing over her rubbing his jaw.

“Oh! Sorry!” she yelped, “Are you okay?”

“Why yes, I am, thank you very kindly.” The stranger was very tall, very thin, and very handsome. His face was smooth and unlined, with a sharp jaw and high cheekbones, large silver-grey eyes and long, beautiful hair. Holy shit, Willy thought. He also smiled very strangely, not quite a smirk, not quite cruel, but his eyes were perhaps a little too sharp and focused on her.

“Uh, sorry about that. Hey, this might be an odd question, but do you know what’s going on here? Because everything is really weird and strange and if you see it too then I’m probably not crazy,” It all poured out of her mouth in a rush.

The man smiled again, knowingly, “Rest assured, little one, your eyes do not deceive you. It would appear you have stumbled upon a Fairey path. I would watch your step, mortal, for if you lose your way, it is unlikely you should ever find it again.”

“Do you know what the deal is with the disappearing bird? Or the green deer? Since you seem to be more familiar with this area than I am?” It was Willy’s mantra. When in doubt, ask the locals. This guy, from a glance at his clothing, lived in the woods. Or a renascence fair in the woods. 

“You mean the spirit owl and the spring deer? Yes, I know them well. They follow us where ‘ear we go.”

“They’re migratory? They follow you? Are they domesticated or just scavenging off your garbage? Because that’s how you get problem bears.”

Now the man was looking at her oddly, “Ah, no. They are wild beasts. They roam the deepest, darkest, most ancient parts of the forest, only to be glimpsed by those who are said to be very lucky, or perhaps unlucky.”

“Do you know if they prefer coniferous forests or deciduous. Because where we’re standing is coniferous, but the deer had broad leaves on its antlers. Do they favor one or the other or is it just where resources are most abundant?”

Now he just seemed confused. “They follow where we go. I suppose they prefer where we settle.”

Willy had pulled out her field notebook and jotted that down, “Huh. Okay, so the deer also had really good camouflage, do they have any predators that make that necessary? Any specific ones, or is it just for general protection?”

“Well, you know, I’m not really sure. Usually people are less focused on that part.”

“Oh, its totally fine, sorry I’m asking so many questions, its just that this is really weird, and really cool. I’m still hung up on ‘they follow you’, can you explain that? Are you nomadic?”

“Yes, we go wherever the seasons take us. You are on the very fringes of the Spring Court, mortal, it would be wise to tread carefully.”

There was a possibility that this guy was kind of nuts. Willy was seriously considering just taking off and abandoning Mr. Fairy, but if he really was living out here all alone, and was having these delusions, especially in such a... weird place, she figured she should probably help him. “Um, okay. Are you doing okay out here? Do you have shelter? Food?” There was a possibility he was just one of those survivalists, and was doing fine, but it couldn’t hurt to check. 

Whoever he was, he seemed to find her concern extremely funny. He laughed out loud, “Ha! Thank you for your worry, little one, but I would be more worried about yourself. These woods are dangerous, you know, lots of beasts and wild animals lurk in the darkness.” He was circling her, which was very odd, and he was very graceful, like a dancer.

“Uh, yeah, I know. I study them. Thanks.” 

“Oh, of course you do! You are curious about the spirit owl and spring deer, yes? If you follow me, I can take you to someone who knows a great deal about them.”

Willy was reluctant. It wasn’t a good idea to go off with strange men in normal circumstances, even more so for the weird guy you found in a mystical woods. Woods people were weird in general, but something about this guy... he seemed moreso.

But. Another look at his clothing showed it was well-made, fine cloth with detailed embroidery. Handmade, even. If there was a community living in the woods that made their own cloth, they probably wouldn’t murder her  _ immedietly. _ And she really was curious about the strange forest around her.

“Okay, sure.”

A huge smile split his face. “Wonderful,” he said, and oh hey, his ears were pointed. (Which was odd, she thought to herself, prosthetics or cosmetic surgery?) He put his hand on the small of her back, ( _ Woah, okay _ ) and began to guide her down the path.

“It has been so long since we’ve had guests, this will be wonderful fun” he said, “ and if we’re to get better acquainted, might I have your name?”

Something about the phrasing of that tickled something in the back of her head, something that made her say her nickname, instead of what she usually said to introduce herself. “Uh, I’m Willy. Nice to meet you.”

“ _ Willy. _ How nice.” She was starting to think she’d made the right decision watching the smile spread like butter over his face. “It’s  _ wonderful  _ to meet you too.”

At this point, the path had twisted and diverged, and they had taken so many turns, Willy wasn’t really sure where they were, or how to get back. Which was... worrying. But at last, they reached a large clearing, the air here thick and heavy, brimming with potential like just before a thunderstorm. It was the sensation of many eyes on her, of a thousand tiny fingers dancing over her neck, the smallest rustle of leaves each clear as a bell in her ears. Something was afoot.

This might be a good place to mention that Willy was a sceptic when it comes to many things. She did not believe in ghosts. The loch ness monster, bigfoot and mothman were fake, there was no probably way they could exist. Aliens were probably bacteria or millions of lightyears away or both. Willy was a sceptic. But there was always some part of her that knew that sometimes weird stuff happened. Sometimes ships vanished and were found unscathed without a crew, sometimes people really did believe they saw something move with no one touching it. The natural world was filled with strange and weird creatures and phenomena and there’s still so much to be discovered. And holy shit, this might be one of those things, because the person who’s iron-strong hand is still pushing her forward might be a fairy and she might be in deep, deep shit.

The clearing emerges all at once. Colorful banners of silk and satin are hung from the trees like streamers, dimly lit by glowing lanterns, in every shade and shape and size. A huge fire is burning in the center, faces flickering in and out of the flames, and billowing in the smoke too. The people dancing all have pointed ears as well, and are all very tall and thin, and that’s where any resemblance stops. Their skin tone comes in all manner of colors, in hue and saturation. Some of them have antlers coming out of their heads, some have horns. She sees gossamer wings, butterfly, dragonfly, feathered, even some leathery looking bat wings sprouting from shoulders. Some, like her guide, have none at all. Its a smorgasbord of laughter and color and noise and frenzy and it is overwhelming.  _ You know, _ she thinks,  _ I think I’m ready to go back to counting squirrels. _

From what she knows about fairies and fae in general is that she’s probably fucked, but maybe she can un-fuck herself a little bit if she’s clever, polite and really, really careful. Her guide (captor?) leads her through the crowd. Its a confusing mess of color and sound that leaves her head spinning. She doesn’t try to understand the music or the words because she has a funny feeling if she does, it will pull her in and never let go. She feels a little like when she stands up too fast and her vision goes dark for a moment before everything rushes back, tingling and overwhelming. 

Eventually she’s dragged clear over to the other side of the huge clearing, to a small group reclining around a raised dais. Sitting on the raised platform on a throne made of moss covered marble is a beautiful woman with skin the color of teak, long silver hair and bright green eyes, the color of antifreeze or Mountain Dew. She’s draped in a lace garment so sheer Willy’s afraid to look at it hard, and nothing else, save for a woven crown of fireweed blooms perched on her head. 

Her guide bowed deeply to the woman, pulling Willy down with him, and intoned, “My Queen. I have brought a gift for your court.”

“Have you, Sandour? I remember last cycle you said something similar, the poor thing only lasted an hour. I do hope this one is a bit sturdier.”

“She will, my Queen. She’s  _ ever _ so interesting.”

“Is she.” Its not a question, as the queen’s face turns to Willy, her voice flowing like swollen creeks and pattering rain on fresh leaves. “Speak, mortal. Make it worth my while.”

“Um-” Willy’s voice cracked, eeking past the bubble of fear in her throat, “Uh, well, I was just counting squirrels, for a study out of the University of-” the queen cocks one perfect eyebrow and Willy senses she’s losing her, “But I found the path, and things were blooming when they weren’t supposed to, and then there were all these weird plants and animals, and it didn’t make any sense, but now it does, y’know, because of you guys. It’s just, uh, really cool. All this,” she gestures at the festivities around her.

“You are a scholar?” the queen asks, leaning forward.

“Yes. Uh, your majesty.”

Sandour cuts in, “You should have heard the questions she was asking, your grace, so thoughtful and clever! She did not even notice what was happening, her thirst for knowledge was so great.”

“What sorts of questions?” Now there's a dangerous edge to her voice, heavily laden with suspicion. 

Willy figured this is going to go best for her if she talked as little as possible, so she stayed quiet, until Sandour gave her a little shake, with his hand still gripping her elbow. “Um, just like, what habitats do the deer and the bird prefer? Is the deer camouflaged to avoid predators? Just stuff like that. He said they follow you? What’s their habitat selection like?”

“She means the spirit bird and the spring deer, majesty,” Sandour quickly interjects, glancing back at Willy with desperation in his eyes. Is he worried for her?

“Hm. And what do you study, specifically, scholar?”

“Ecology. I study the relationship between the land and the plants and animals of a particular area, and how they interact with each other.”

The queen sits back, “That’s mildly interesting. Very well, Sandour, well done. Have you any other particular talents, mortal?”

Anything Willy’s ever done, anything that’s ever interested her flies out of her mind. “Uh-” she winces, looking down at her feet, “I hand-knitted the socks I’m wearing?”

A woman lounging to the queen’s left perks up at that, and the queen waves an elegant hand and says, “Very well, she’ll do. Bring her.” And with that Willy is led up onto the dais and plunked down right at the queen’s feet.

The evening after that becomes blurred. Perfect, smooth faces whirl by with the frenzied, haunting music, and she answers endless questions, trying to satisfy the court’s curiosity. She explains her current work, what it will mean in larger context, even tries to explain the scientific method with the words ‘fuck around and find out’ which gains uproarus, tinkling laughter. The fae who looked interested when she mentioned her socks apparently collects handmade items because they “hold so much of the creator’s spirit” Apparently it’s like magic mushrooms for fairies. At some point, the blue-haired woman manages to haggle for them, and Willy only has time to be the slightest bit disappointed (those were nice socks) and worried (what the fuck, ‘creator’s spirit’?) before someone new grabs her attention.

The fae all become very handsy as the night goes on, too. It started with Sandour, his hand never leaves her elbow as if she’s about to run off, which, really, where’s she going to go? Then someone else lays a cool, slender hand on her arm, then another over her shoulder, then resting on her thigh, and eventually Willy’s fully seated in someone’s lap, half-babbling about possible theories for the origin of life. His arms are slender, like the rest of him, but well-muscled and strong as steel bands around her waist. She couldn’t move if she tried.

Willy’s head feels fuzzy, the air hazy with sounds and smoke from the fire and perfumes and at some point, she’s passed back to Sandour. She notices  _ he _ smells especially nice, snuggled across his lap, and she’s  _ so _ tired, tucking her face into his neck and closing her eyes. There’s some soft cooing around her, some tittering laughs, but God, she’s exhausted.

Distantly, she hears the queen’s voice say, “It’s to be expected. Mortals are so fragile after all. I’m surprised she’s lasted this long, anyway.”

“Oh, she’s so darling Sandour, are you going to keep her?” A hand brushes some hair away from her face, cool against her fevered skin.

“Oh, I really couldn’t. She wouldn’t be half as interesting if she were confined so.”

A deep, rumbling voice carries over across the dais, and she recognises it as the man who had her on his lap before, “I’d take her if you don’t want her,” he says, “There’s enough in our realm to keep her occupied for centuries, or however long they live.” Willy doesn’t like the casual, dismissive tone to his words, and remembers the way his hands crept possessively to rest on her inner thigh and around her neck. She scrunches her nose against Sandour’s throat, and huddles closer.

Sandour’s voice sounds close to her ear, “Oh, fuck off, Trisíen. If you want a pet human, go find your own. I’m certainly not letting you get your hands on her after what you did to the last one.” The arms around her tighten, and these don’t feel confining and dangerous, they feel safe, protective. There’s more laughter, and some grumbling, but conversation resumes and Willy’s left to doze in peace. 

When she wakes fully, she’s tucked away on a chaise lounge at the edge of the clearing, in some half-constructed tent made of silks and tapestries. Blearily, she sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and looks out into the clearing. And just as quickly looks away again. The party’s still going, clearly, but instead of dancing, spinning and laughing, the partygoers are now writhing, gyrating on the flattened grass of the open space. Sounds that would make a porn star blush (and certainly Willy) echo through the trees and she sees some positions that look  _ very _ athletic and would probably break her spine if she tried them. Willy immediately turns around, putting her back to the clearing only to come face to face with Sandour.

“Gah!” Willy starts, almost falling off backward from the lounge.

“Willy,” he says, “I trust you enjoyed your nap?”

“Uh huh, yeah. It was very nice,” she says, trying and failing to ignore the sounds coming from behind her. She’s blushing so hard her face feels like it’s on fire.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that the festivities have moved on from the dancing and feasting.”

“Yes. Yes I have.” A particularly high, piercing moan floats above the general clamor.

“This is, after all, the Court of Spring. A time of rebirth, new beginnings-” suddenly, Sansour’s right in front of her, his face inches away from hers, “fertility,” he breathes.

“You know, a lot of mammals actually breed in the fall, and gestate all winter. Babies are actually born in the spring, not uh-  _ made _ then.” Willy swallows heavily and holy shit, he is  _ so _ close. His hands are planted on either side of her hips, his shoulders boxing her in. 

“Well, then it’s a good thing we’re not mammals then, isn’t it?” He brushes his nose along the sternocleidomastoid muscle in her neck, tracing the ridge of it, feather light.

“That’s a good point, do you guys count as regular animals? I mean, I assume you have live births, give milk and have hair, but where do you guys belong, phylogenetically? Like, do you count as synapsids or-?” He cuts her off, slamming his mouth into hers, swallowing her words down with greedy kisses.

“You continue to vex me, little one,” he says eventually, breaking the kiss when she feels like she might pass out. One of her lips feels swollen and tender, where he slammed into her, where he bit her savagely. “How can you  _ still _ speak of your quest for knowledge and answers when I am so clearly enamored with you? Am I not handsome? Charming? Have I not protected you from the Queen’s wrath and Trisíen’s greed? Think of all the wonders I have shown you, and you are still unmoved?” Willy’s stunned by the desperation in his eyes, the hurt, the want. It’s not like she’s  _ opposed  _ to a one night stand with a fae, it’s just that she never expected to meet one in the first place, and is relatively off-balance in general. 

“Well, it’s just that- You’re supposed to be careful about these sorts of things. Especially with your kind. And I usually don’t do this sort of thing. And I didn’t really expect this. And I talk when I’m nervous.”

“I have not met such a fascinating human in many long years, Willy. Nor anyone quite so peculiar as you. Join me tonight, just for tonight, for this ritual, and you shall be free of me if you so wish. Accept, and I shall make all your wildest dreams come true,” he leaned in again, his breath ghosting along her ear, making her shiver, “At least, in the carnal sense.”

“Just free of you? Or free of this place and everyone in it?” She hardly dares to speak, whispering much like he does.

He laughs, “And here I thought I might catch you, keep you here so I might watch you from afar in the arms of another. But very well, from this place and everyone in it.”

“What the hell. Okay.”

“ _ Excellent, _ ” he purrs, and leans forward the rest of the way, toppling them both onto the chaise lounge, Willy on her back and Sandour pinning her from chest to hips, their legs tangled together.

His mouth is back at her neck, biting and sucking with enthusiasm she hasn’t encountered before. His hands dig into the softness at her waist, sure to leave bruises tomorrow. Willy’s head is tilted back, to accommodate Sandour’s ministrations, tipped back over the edge of the lounge. Through half-lidded eyes, she can see the clearing upside down, see all the writhing bodies and little clusters, all moving together.

Sandour’s moved all the way down to the collar of her shirt, and suddenly Willy’s reminded of the fact that she hasn’t showered in days, and she’s been wearing this shirt for at least two. She cringes a little at the thought of it, and almost warns him, but Sandour just keeps on going, sliding one of his chilly hands under her shirt, palming her breast under the sports bra (also days old), her nipple hardening from his cool hand.

“If I may,” he gasps into her neck, tugging at the hem of her shirt.

“Yes. Yep, go for it,” Willy manages to gasp back, her fingers tangled in his long, shining hair, dark as the sky above them. If she lets her vision go out of focus, she can imagine stars glittering in it as well.

Sandour lets out a pleased hum, moving back up her neck to capture her lips in another bruising kiss. He pries her mouth open, not that she’s giving any real resistance, and  _ wow, _ Willy thought kissing like this only existed in romance novels. Clearly not. Eventually, they have to part to allow her shirt to get over her head. Sandour takes in the expanse of newly exposed skin like a cat who got the cream, watching the swell of her breast as it rises and falls with her heavy breaths. 

Willy’s not the most attractive or sexy woman out there, but under his gaze, she feels like the most desirable creature on the damn planet. It feels nice, and she lets herself preen under the attention. She smooths a hand down the bit of exposed chest that the loose neckline of his shirt shows. She tugs on it playfully. “Hey, you too, bud. Fair’s fair.”

He smiles and intones, “You should know by now that fae never play fair, dearest,” but pulls the thin cotton over his head anyway. Willy plants both hands on his chest, feeling the smooth skin and firm muscle dance and play over bone. He’s thin, not skinny, but lithe, and she  _ loves _ watching the way movement shifts and moves over his ribcage and collarbones. It’s fascinating to watch, but her attention is pulled away when Sandour leans back over her and buries his face in the softness of her breasts at the top of her bra, nipping and sucking.

When he finally comes up for air, there’s a distinct throbbing sensation between Willy’s legs, sensitive and swollen. He pulls her upright into his lap and  _ oh, _ she’s not the only one affected by this. His face scrunches adorably when confronted by her sports bra, likely never having seen one before. She laughs, brushing his hands to the side and pulling the thing over her head. He smiles again when her breast bounce free, immediately latching onto one of the nipples.

Willy sighs into the air, head tipped back. She’s still being drowned out by the chaos behind her, and usually she wouldn’t think to do this in such a public place, but she figures the folks behind her are occupied with their own trysts that they’re not going to notice her’s and she’s in a fucking  _ fairy clearing. _ It’s not like she’ll ever see these people again anyway. So she rolls her hips down onto the hard length that’s pressing between her legs and swallows the moan Sandour lets out.

Eventually his hips are rising to meet hers in such a way she might at well shove her hand down his pants and get this ball rolling. So she does. Like the rest of him, he’s cool in her hand, and Sandour lets out a cry like he’s been stabbed, throwing his head back so quickly he almost knocks their heads together. Absently, Willy wonders if her hand feels really warm in comparison. Judging from his reaction, it’s not too far out of the realm of possibility. She gathers a bit of pre-come from the head and uses it to ease the glide of her hand along his shaft. 

And boy, if she thought he’d been loud before. Maybe all fae are like that, she thinks, listening to the cacophony behind her once again. Eventually, he gasps, “Ah! Please, please, you must stop, or the night will be over before it begins! Mercy, please!” This last bit is said with a laugh and mirth in his eyes. “You must let me reciprocate.” 

Willy feels his cool fingers creep down her belly, and she twitches involuntarily. When he stops, looking up at her with careful eyes, she says, “Sorry, keep going, I’m just really ticklish.”

The wicked grin creeps back to his face, “Are you? I might need to exploit that, hm?”

She just starts to say, “Don’t you dare-!” when his fingers spider over the soft skin of her belly once again and she immediately jumps back with a shriek, almost toppling over backward off the lounge.

“Oh- _ ho _ ,” he says, “You’re  _ sensitive. _ ” He looms forward, arms outstretched, hands at the ready.

Willy narrows her eyes, ready for the next attack. She’s played this game too many times with her brother to not know what comes next. When he lunges forward, she throws herself backward off the lounge, into a backwards somersault, landing in a crouch. Immediately, she’s on her feet and running, giggling wildly and darting through trees and lanterns as Sandour chases her, a matching manic grin on his face. Willy hasn’t felt like this in ages, wild and free, sprinting topless through the dim woods. It’s like everything else has disappeared, all her responsibilities and worries are far away and right now, she understands Puck and Oberon, playing fun and  _ damn _ the consequences. She’s free as a bird, giddy as a child, with nothing in her way.

She makes the mistake of looking behind her, catching Sandour’s eyes as he grins madly, and  _ leaps, _ arms outstretched. He tackles her to the ground, and she shrieks with laughter, both of them rolling through the soft moss that blankets the ground here until he finally pins her hips with his own, sitting proudly above her, diving back in once more to her belly.

Willy can’t breathe, she’s laughing so hard, rolling this way and that in an attempt to throw him off, but either he’s denser than he looks or she’s not actually trying that hard. 

Eventually, Willy’s laughter becomes mostly gasping and Sandour stops tickling her and then they’re just lying there, both of them trying to catch their breath, staring into each other’s eyes. He’s still perched on top of her, she watches as his eyes flick down to her exposed breast, heaving from exertion, her nipples pebbled in the cool night air. And  _ oh, _ she can still feel the length of him pressed into her leg.

Without another word, he lunges forward and devours her mouth again, and this time, his hand actually makes it down her pants. He groans into her mouth when he finds her wet and throbbing and Willy’s hips jerk up into his touches. 

His fingers ( _ God, _ how come she hadn’t noticed how long and perfect they are) slide through her folds, finding her clit at the apex and rubbing gently. She chokes and jerks in his arms as one, then two fingers find their way into her wet heat, scissoring and stretching until it feels like she’s fit to burst at any moment. “Holy shit!” it comes out strangled and hoarse, “I’m close, I’m  _ so _ close, keep going.”

“Hm,” he purrs, right next to her ear, “I don’t know, my hand might be getting tired, I don’t think-”

She bites, _ hard, _ into his neck, handily right next to her mouth, and grinds out, “I swear to God if you stop now I am going to fucking  _ kill _ you!” and jams her hand down his pants again and grabs his cock, grip loose for now, as a warning.

“Well, when you put it that way,” he gasps. His fingers curl  _ just _ so, brushing up against that special place inside of her and the tension just breaks. Willy arches back, mouth open in a silent scream as she comes. 

When the ringing in her ears fades, lifts her head again, glances down at the obvious tent in Sandour’s pants, and says, “Yeah, take those off,” and starts to kick out of her own. Sandour’s eyebrows raise like ‘ _ who are you to tell me what to do,’ _ but he doesn’t complain, and starts unlacing the front of his trousers. When he finally kicks them away, Willy raises an eyebrow at the lack of underwear, but hey, magical fairy people living in an enchanted forest probably have other things on their mind. In any case, she plants both hands on his shoulders, locks eyes with him, and shoves. He flops onto his back, looking way more graceful than anyone should have a right to, and stares up at her with huge, dark eyes. Willy can’t tell if the irises are just black, or his pupils are just that big. Either way, it’s hot.

As she straddles his hips and gets ready to slide down his cock, he rests his hands on her hips, thumbing the knob of bone, and says, “You’re such a curious creature. I have never met someone so bold and so unafraid as you.” He sounds almost contemplative.

Willy feels herself blush, and does what she usually does in an awkward situation, diffuse it with humor. “Well, you know. Technically I could die at any minute, so. Might as well make it count.”

He laughs, “And you make it count by falling into bed with random fair folk?”

“Nah. For that to be true, this would have had to happen more than once. But hey, this could start a trend,” and sinks down onto his cock. 

They gasp in unison, but Sandour chokes out, “Ought I to feel special that I’m your first?”

“You could,” she gasps, “I’m not going to stop you.”

“Good,” he says, gripping her hips with a bruising force, “Then I won’t.” And with that, he thrusts his hips up to meet her.

After that, there’s not much talking. True to his word, Sandour  _ doesn’t  _ stop, pounding Willy through another orgasm, teeth just a  _ hair _ too sharp to be human teasing her nipple, practically bouncing her on his lap. He fucks her through her climax and right into the next one, rolling her onto her back and she can feel his rhythm stutter once, twice, before he pulls out, taking himself in hand and finishing over her stomach and chest. Then he collapses next to her, breathing heavily, staring up at the stars. 

Absently, Willy swipes a finger through the mess on her chest, and after contemplating it for a minute, ( _ I wonder..? _ ) licks it off. Next to her, Sandour groans, “Woman, you will be the death of me.”

She wrinkles her nose, and says, “Nope, still tastes the same.”

“You thought it’d taste different?”

She shrugs, “You never know.”

He huffs out a laugh, turning to curl into her side, and closing his eyes. Willy feels herself following. The moss underneath her is soft, the night air pleasantly cool against her sweat-slick skin. She can still hear the orgy in the clearing, the sound filtering through the trees, but it’s far enough away so it’s just white noise. She finds the three-star belt of Orion, sees the cup of the Big Dipper where the rest is obscured by the trees and lets herself close her eyes as well. As she drifts off, there might be the faintest brush of lips against her shoulder.

…………

Wilhelmina wakes up in the grove with her tree stand. All the blooming lichens, the long old man’s beard, the little path, are gone. Her clothing is mostly in order, but she’s missing her socks and her sports bra. When she checks the digital GPS, she finds she’s right where she should be, and right when she should be. Almost no time has passed, it’s late afternoon, early evening of the same day she left. Which is odd, because it was definitely night time when she fell asleep.

Wilhelmina blushes, remembering exactly what she’d been doing right before she fell asleep, picks herself up, straightens her clothing and finds her backpack resting against a nearby tree. There’s no note, but one of the pinkish dogwood flowers is suspended in a little glass orb on a gold chain. She stares at it for a second, then puts it in the top pocket of her backpack and hikes back to her campsite. She has dinner to make after all. 

When she’s changing for bed that night, she notices something like a birthmark on her shoulder, that wasn’t there before, in the shape of a pair of lips, pressed in for a tender kiss. As she turns off her lantern for the night, she thinks about how annoying it will be to introduce herself as Wilhelmina from now on. And she smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank u for reading!   
> I would absolutely wander off the path if I saw a weird bug but Sandour would take one look and slaughter me immediately. Win some, lose some, eh?  
> Also, I did not edit this whatsoever, what is on the page is what was in my head. Like writing essays, no thoughts, head empty.


End file.
